Today I will cover the book The Modern Witchcraft Grimoire: your complete guide to creating your Book of Shadows, by Skye Alexander. I chose this book first, instead of the one on witchcraft, which I will review later, as it ties in nicely to my blog Your Book of Magic.
Design
Not going to lie, this entire series drew me in because of the cover design. It has a lovely vintage look that fits the whole “witchy aesthetic” as much as I hate to admit it.
The design inside the book is simple but elegant and fits well with the cover. Some may find it a little more feminine maybe, but to me, it’s not in a way that bothers me. It’s readable, not too small and easy to distinguish which is written material, “fun facts” or spells and recipes throughout. There’s not too much to say about the design apart from that. It’s pretty similar throughout the series, and I like that consistency.
The Series
This book is part of the book series “The Modern Witchcraft Guide” which includes books on witchcraft, tarot, grimoires, natural magick, the wheel of the year and spells. Of which I own all but the spellbooks. Most of these are written by Skye Alexander, but Natural Magick and Wheel of the Year are written by Judy Ann Nock.
The series is meant to cover the various subjects related to the craft in a not tradition specific way, which some books do better than others. They are meant as basic guides that may fit the general audience but I did find some books to have a more Wicca or heavily Goddess oriented feel than others.
For that reason when I recommend these books I always want to emphasize that they should be used as inspiration not strict instructions and I think Skye would agree with me. The contents of these books are suggestions for you to look into. I don’t always as much feel the need to say this but I do here. As a non-Wiccan practitioner, I am always on the lookout for more general books which can include Wiccan ways but aren’t based on it for the most part, which sometimes proves to be difficult. However, these are very nice introduction books.
Content
I have mixed feelings about the contents of this book for reasons already stated before. Overall the book has nice suggestions, tips, ideas, recipes and such, covering a wide array of things. Skye uses the terms Grimoire and Book of Shadows interchangeably and I actually really liked that because there really is not much of a difference with the terminology.
Somewhere in the book, Skye mentions these are all suggestions. But while reading it didn’t always feel that way and I had to constantly remind myself that it was just that, suggestions. I think some sections could’ve been written in a less instructional way and more suggestive with examples. That may just be my own personal view on the matter though.
The book is divided into 2 parts.
Part One focuses on designing your grimoire. Going over why making one (Chap 1), how to make one (Chap 2), organizing it (Chap 3), what to include (Chap 4) and how to prepare using it (Chap 5).
Skye uses a lot of kitchen analogies and it sometimes helps understand why she mentions all the things she does. The organizing section in Chapter 3 felt a little useless to me. It was basically a way of mentioning it briefly before getting into it in Part Two. The first part of Chapter 5 got really on my nerves with how strictly traditional it felt in regards to setting up a Sacred Space and consecrating a Grimoire before going into writing in different alphabets like Theban, Runes (with small factual errors like the age of the alphabet) and Ogham.
Part Two is about using your grimoire. This section covers everyday magic (chap 6), special occasion spells (chap 7), Solar spells (chap 8), Lunar spells (chap 9), spells for specific purposes (chap 10), verbal spells (chap 11), visual spells (chap 12), active spells (chap 13), magical concoctions (chap 14), working with magical tools (chap 15), ingredients for spells (chap 16), symbols in spells (chap 17), dreams and magic (chap 18), deities and other entities (chap 19) and looking toward the future (chap 20).
This part felt more like a spellbook of things to include or how to live your spiritual witchy life rather than how to use your own book which to me it implies. What was mentioned in chapter 3, about organizing your grimoire being further touched upon in this part, is hidden throughout the various chapters. Chapter 10 which sounded like a spellbook section was actually more about organization, spells and spell writing. After that, it goes into types of spells. Chapter 14 again covers an organization method before going into potions and amulets and such. Then more types of magic, about recording your dreams, working with deities and the final part about how your grimoire ties into your future practice.
It’s quite a lot of information but at the same time mostly just touching the surface of things, which is good because it gives you what you need to be able to look into it further yourself if you’re interested, without offering things you may not be interested in (yet).
My opinion
I tried to keep my subjective opinion out of the Content section as much as possible as I noticed I have some issues with the way it is written. By no means do I think this is a badly written book, but that also doesn’t mean I have to agree with the way it has been written. I did put this review aside for a few days to think over my impression and if it was just and not just my own bias having issues with it.
This is my personal opinion, but I do feel a lot of information is either very Wicca influenced or follows a very Wiccan like code of tradition and ethics. It’s not that I am against it but I wish there was more inclusion of how to adapt these more traditional things to your personal path perhaps. For example, there’s a lot of emphasis on working with deities, while not everyone may have a religious approach or want to incorporate them. It also mentioned (in Part One) building a sacred space in several steps followed by consecrating your book in a way that seems highly traditional without alternative ways or stating that it is optional. That is mostly in the first part of the book. Part two initially felt more suggestive.
The book felt very Goddess heavy. I’m not opposed to working with the divine feminine, I’m a polytheist and work with many goddesses. I really had to look at this fact twice. If you come from a religious background you may want to dive more into the ways of the Goddess than those who have been “exposed” to her for longer. I’ve been on this path for a long time now and I feel the divine feminine and masculine should be covered equally as appropriate. Yes, I think it’s fine to put some emphasis on the Goddesses and working with her, but I do think a dozen mentions of her as opposed to the 1 section for the Gods seems out of balance. Maybe I’m just taking this as an issue because my Gods helped me accept my not hyper-feminine self in modern society and wish they got the same level of attention. Very curious if this would be just me or if anyone agrees. I did feel like saying this sounded very anti Goddess oriented practises and truly, I’m not, it’s purely the imbalance to me here.
It’s clear to me Skye and I don’t agree on all fronts as to how a grimoire has to be treated. She takes a much more ritual approach than I find essential but I do want to add that if that speaks to you then that is 100% okay. I’m simply a no-bullshit kind of gall and don’t like to overcomplicate things that don’t need it. In fact, making certain things bigger than they need to be, makes me not want to do or use them. Make it as mundane or special as you need it to be, that’s essentially my advice.
Perhaps I expected something different from this book. I definitely didn’t expect so much different craft types to be included, I’d expect to find them in a witchcraft oriented book, but I also saw there is a lot of overlap between this book and the Guide to Witchcraft book in the series. Instead, I hoped there would be more different ways to organise or structure your book in a more to the point manner. I think this book on its own could be a good starting point for those extremely new to the craft.
Recommendation
At this point, you may think I would not recommend this book at all given my whole opinion section, but actually, I might depending what you’re looking for or how you can filter material.
Overall, as I think I stated several times now, it is a good book that offers many things to the reader. Some may have the same irritations as I did, and some may vibe with it very well. If you are unsure of getting this book, see if there is a preview you can read or perhaps you can borrow it from someone or find it in a library.
- If you are very new to the craft this might be a decent book to start with as it covers a lot of things. You might actually like the heavy emphasis on working with Goddesses or
- If don’t mind filtering through the deity/goddess oriented approach or the sometimes more traditional approach Skye describes, then this is a very decent book to get you started in a lot of ways.
- If you’re looking for a very to the point book, this may not necessarily be it and I think you’d find much more suited information elsewhere. Perhaps my blog post can be of help to you or maybe someone else on the internet is offering what you’re looking for.
I hoped you found this review helpful and if you have questions or suggestions let me know in the comments!
This review did make me want to make a list of different things I’d look for in a book and be able to rate all my reviews according to that with a score type thing so I’m going to think about that a little more. I will probably write a blog specifically on this book series and what I think of it (spellbooks excluded).
Path of Ashes 